Charles Cowden Clarke had introduced the young Keats to the poetry of Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethans, and these were his earliest models. After he determines to marry her, he queries: “Sure some sweet name thou hast, though, John Keats. I could pass my life very nearly alone though it would last eighty years” ( 369) He many times expressed his attraction to a solitary life that would allow him to study and write, and he assured his brother, George, that he thrived in isolation: “ . The hymn to Apollo continues for several more lines to its crescendo, as the poet rejoices with his Muse that “Apollo is once more the golden theme!” (Book III, line 28). . Also, he commented that he wrote what he imagined rather than what he saw, which was, in his view, Byron’s approach and an inferior endeavor. . At Abbey’s instigation John Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton in 1811. How misguided Lycius has been in allowing himself to become enmeshed in this emotion, devoid of reason and false, with an underside of misery, finds metaphorical and hyperbolic expression in Lycius’s lover being a snake in reality. Seneca admonished his followers not to remain a “subaltern” to other thinkers, but to “Take command and say things that will be handed down to posterity” (186). . And be among her cloudy trophies hung.” John Keats was born on 31 October 1795, the first of Frances Jennings and Thomas Keats’s five children, one of whom died in infancy. to 165 A.D., encouraged his acolytes to work for the good of the country, then, if forced out of civic duty or prevented by circumstance from participating in the community, to pursue teaching, writing or philosophy—all valuable for the world as much as for oneself. Keats also stated in his letters that, when immersed in writing, he was in a sort cloy’d, / A burning forehead, and a parching tongue,” as Keats phrased the aftermath of passion in another poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (part III, lines 9-10). Also which of them is being addressed? From the moment Lycius perceives Lamia, no reasonable thought comes into his head. He did, despite his philosophy, fall into periods of depression: yet, perhaps his philosophy helped him to climb out. Neither Keats nor Seneca gave any credence to suffering as punishment or as the basis for the compensations of a heavenly afterlife. Keats concerned himself in his philosophy with finding the best way to deal with life, rather than with pursuing theoretical exercises in logic. According to Severn, Keats sought suicide by an overdose of laudanum; Severn, reluctantly but dutifully, removed the bottle of relief from the apartment in He stated regarding socializing, “We must cut down on gadding about. Having identified that Keats had a strong philosophical tendency, scholars of literature and philosophy have sought in his poetry elements of Humanism,5 Platonism,6 and Zen Buddhism.7 Humanism might underlie his poems, but it is less a method for daily living and a response to eternal questions than the historical development of a general attitude. After one of his extended philosophical discourses he wrote, luxurious, and a love for philosophy,—were I calculated for the former, I should be glad. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel . Despite Stoicism’s general lack of interest in aesthetics and its concern for reigning in emotion, Seneca allowed a passionate and immoderate mindset for writing: he referred to the statements of Plato and Aristotle and their views on the mixture of madness and genius typical to great poetic creativity, then articulated his own belief: “ . . ‘My voice is not a bellows unto ire. 10 Indeed, part of the reason to accept the fall of the Titan world is that a greater beauty is coming with the advent of Apollo. It must tear itself from the trodden path, palpitate with frenzy. unfortunate. As Seneca pointed out, “No situation is so harsh that a dispassionate mind cannot find some consolation in it” (93). “How astonishingly does the chance of leaving the world impress a sense of its natural beauties upon me” (461). Knowledge played an important part to foster tranquility for both Keats and Seneca. 9 Reason, like knowledge, implicates the power of the mind, the emotions. Antisthenes and “the practical side” are Stoic. Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Even though Keats died at the young age of 25, it was not before he had created a significant amount of literary output that earned him acclaim for long after his death. Rome. Endymion appeared in 1818. Bidding adieu; and aching pleasure nigh, . The purposes of that exercise were to encourage a person to make the most of his life, to put events in perspective, and to make the eventual end less daunting. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. . ( Log Out / References to the statements of Seneca are to this text and are hereafter cited parenthetically. As Bari describes it: "Reading … Instead, their common theme was the usefulness of adversity to achieve self-knowledge and to form a person: more particularly, for Keats to form a soul, for Seneca to fashion a stalwart individual. Keats was interested in and valued philosophy second only to poetry and, well into his career as a poet, he even stated in a letter that “the human friend philosopher” was more “genuine” than a “fine writer” (364). (Book II, lines 176-81) . His poetry is objective. . In the summer of 1818 Keats went on a walking tour in the Lake District (of northern England) and Scotland with his friend Charles Brown, and his exposure and overexertions on that trip brought on the first symptoms of the tuberculosis of which he was to die. He assures them they need not feel bereft and wretched, but rather tranquil: Keats wrote images of unparalleled beauty and lines that are some of the most famous in poetry. . .” (133). Updates? He broke off his apprenticeship in 1814 and went to live in London, where he worked as a dresser, or junior house surgeon, at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospitals. In a poem included in a letter to his brother George, Keats described the poet as being in a “trance,” capable of perceptions like no other person (21). ” (54). . Whereas Oceanus murmurs, she laments: “Cylmene . Neither Keats nor Seneca gave any credence to suffering as punishment or as the basis for the compensations of a heavenly afterlife. See also Irvine, The Guide to the Good Life, 17 et seq. H. Buxton Forman (London: Reeves & Turner, 1895; repr., Ellibron Classics, 2005), 519. Also, a study of Keats as a Platonist must focus on his poetics, not on a method for living because Plato was a dialectician and theorist; certainly Keats was not suggesting to Brown that he deal with grief by remembering Platonic ideas. It surprises me somewhat that Astronomy didn't play a bigger role in the philosophy of the great poets. ... John Keats. John Keats (October 31, 1795 - February 23, 1821) was an English Romantic poet, generally considered one of the greatest English poets. 26 Now it appears to me that almost any Man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel . He published only fifty-four poems, in three slim volumes and a few magazines. 23 Reason was the “true good” and Seneca devoted an essay to proving that axiom (256-261). According to Severn, Keats sought suicide by an overdose of laudanum; Severn, reluctantly but dutifully, removed the bottle of relief from the apartment in After the breakup of their mother’s second marriage, the Keats children lived with their widowed grandmother at Edmonton, Middlesex. after thinking a moment or two that you suffer in common with all mankind hold it not a sin to regain your cheerfulness” (212). Although he did not advise others to keep death in mind, he did so himself. ( Log Out / Knowledge played an important part to foster tranquility for both Keats and Seneca. Three months before John Keats died in Rome, he wrote his valedictory letter. . Keats’ verse letter to his brother (1816) contains many of his beliefs about his vocation as a poet, in particular what it would mean for him to ‘strive to think divinely’, to have a poet’s imaginative vision whilst at the same time absorbing the sights and sounds of the natural world. The most interesting poem in this volume is “Sleep and Poetry,” the middle section of which contains a prophetic view of Keats’s own poetical progress. 11 Irvine, The Guide to the Good Life, 34-5. In his letters Keats does not pronounce tranquility his goal, per se, yet it can be reasonably inferred that tranquility was his philosophical end. The purposes of that exercise were to encourage a person to make the most of his life, to put events in perspective, and to make the eventual end less daunting. If Stoicism were distilled into one element it would be the necessity of reason–the sine qua non of the system. 4 Robert Gittings, John Keats: the Living Year (Harvard University Press, 1954), 4. The road lies through application, study, and thought. . there are none prepared to suffer in obscurity for their Country” (218). . “I account you unfortunate because you have never been, unfortunate. . 20 Hadas, “Introduction,” 7-8. John attended a school at Enfield, two miles away, that was run by John Clarke, whose son Charles Cowden Clarke did much to encourage Keats’s literary aspirations. Philosophy in the British Romantic Era A web chronicle of the philosophies proposed during the Romantic Movement Main menu. English Romantic poet John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London. if Wordsworth had thought a little deeper at that moment, he would not have written the poem at all. In his final days, as through his life, Keats did not believe that religion offered the way to reconcile oneself to adversity or that it revealed the mysteries for which the tangible world was the allegorical representation; for him, philosophy provided guidance for living and, if not an answer to the eternal questions, at least clues. . Enjoy the best John Keats Quotes at BrainyQuote. On the topic of passionate love, reason failed in his life and won in his poem Lamia. The message that Oceanus imparts to the Titans accords with Keats’s Stoic view on adversity expressed in his letters, i.e. The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness. He continued in that letter to opine that man could no more escape his suffering than the rose could avoid the withering sun or the fish disperse the ice of winter streams (326). 6 Douka Kabitoglou, “Adapting Philosophy to Literature: the Case of John Keats,” Studies in Philology 89.1 (1992). The unimportance of material goods, the self-sufficient love of solitude that disdained socializing, and the importance of the internal versus external world were the hallmarks of an appropriate life outlined by Seneca that Keats represented; he even outdid Seneca in bringing those values to life. Coming back to the fundamental eudaemonistic ethics of Stoicism, I could hardly propose Keats as an honorary Roman Stoic unless his philosophy did do him some good in his life. Also, without reason there was no path toward a happy life, since, as discussed above, reason explained adversity and made control of the emotions possible (239). . He wrote in a letter after his failure with the critics and the public: “No external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary perception and ratification of what is fine” (207). How to feed fierce the crooked stings of fire, His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, 17 Ibid, 224. Keats’s approach of gathering ideas from various sources mimics Stoicism’s syncretistic nature: Seneca borrowed from any school of thought where he found a useful item of knowledge, and having done so it was as much his as anyone’s: “Whatever is true is mine,” Seneca stated (77), regardless of whether Epicurus, for example, was known for the idea. Seneca’s explaining adversity served the goal of attaining a kind of happiness, termed tranquility. Keats certainly burned the fuel of his inner resources, and turning inward to his own mind was a philosophical approach that matched his creative proclivity. Sleep is an embalmer and provider of gloom, dark, shade, and escape. The Poems of John Keats (1970) Collections: The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats (1831) Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820) Endymion: A Poetic Romance (1818) Poems (1817) Prose. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. look over the two last pages and ask yourself whether I have not that in me which will bear the buffets of the world” (305). . The third feature of a Stoic lifestyle is the importance of the internal world, versus the external world. Keats would have followed Seneca’s advice and ended his life, faced with the unrelenting agony of a terminal illness. . “. In the poem, one can deduce John Keats’ philosophy of life as thus: Art as an ultimate preserver , Art as a Keeper of Beauty and Time , Art as a True Picture of Humanity and Art as a form of Escapism . Unfortunately, although the theoretical side of philosophy flourished, the practical side his withered away” (20). Keats also stated in his letters that, when immersed in writing, he was in a sort. failed. In observing how uncommon the trait was Keats wrote: “Very few men have ever arrived at a complete disinterestedness of Mind: very few have been influenced by a pure desire of the benefit of others,–in the greater part of the Benefactors of Humanity some meretricious motive has sullied their greatness—some. The Purpose and Development of Philosophy, Keats concerned himself in his philosophy with finding the best way to deal with life, rather than with pursuing theoretical exercises in logic. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Lycius is a lover and as such is ruled by emotion. Keats, however, was dissatisfied with the poem as soon as it was finished. . Keeping thoughts of death ever in mind is an essential Stoic practice. . 3 Moses Hadas, “Introduction,” in The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca (New York: W.W. Norton, 1958), 19-26. In support of that eventuality, the narrator drops hints where the romance is headed, noting that if the relationship had lasted longer, love would have waned: “. Instead of quantity, we are left with poems of tremendous quality. His reputation grew after his early death, and he was greatly admired in the Victorian Age. Thus, given the natural origin of hardship and its inescapability, the question for philosophy was how to reconcile oneself to it. . In the worship of the goddess of the soul, the world of nature and the world of the mind are joined together by the imagination, just as desire and the spirit are fused in the union of Cupid and Psyche. Accordingly, he termed life not a “vale of tears,” but a “vale of soul-making” (326). . exercise reason over feelings) towards women in referring to his sexual trysts in Oxford, and it seems in fact he did. Keats’s approach of gathering ideas from various sources mimics Stoicism’s syncretistic nature: Seneca borrowed from any school of thought where he found a useful item of knowledge, and having done so it was as much his as anyone’s: “Whatever is true is mine,” Seneca stated (77), regardless of whether Epicurus, for example, was known for the idea. . As for joy and its excesses, Keats seemed to embrace the Stoic admonition against indulging pleasure in the pursuit of joy. As noted earlier, although Keats’s philosophy of life was, in Stoic fashion, practical in its orientation and separate from his aesthetics, many of his contemplations led to poetry. The disinterested person Keats declared was not to be found because “. .” (44-5). . 14 Irvine, The Guide to the Good Life, 56. Keats wondered, however, if knowledge sufficed in all cases: “It is impossible to know how far knowledge will, console us for the death of a friend, and the ill ‘that flesh is heir to’ ” (126). But to remember is one thing, to know another” (187). 7 My ideal date would be to park in a dark place, check out the stars, and have a great conversation. No poet was so severely criticized at the beginning nor more highly praised at the end of his life. Reason, synonymous with thinking, is the basis for acquiring knowledge (whether deductive or inductive–any other purported way of knowing would rely on instinct.) 22 . “. and trans. melodramatic scenery has fascinated them” (303). .” (139). Seneca marveled at the simplicity with which he lived after making the hugely disinterested act of leaving Rome to return to his farm because it was best for Roman democracy: “How could I not admire the high spirit which withdrew him into voluntary exile and so disburdened the state?” (216). one untroubled by emotion. Later once consumption besieged him, Keats’s letters and those written by his attendants in Rome suggest that perhaps his philosophy failed him; one such he wrote to Brown after setting sail for Rome, ill and bereft of Fanny Brawne: “Is there another life? In his poetry, Keats makes a more overt statement in favor of tranquility, as he addressed the control of emotions at both extremes. Keats found that for him it did constitute an excess severely at odds with tranquility. His letters reveal that a philosopher exhibited two necessary attributes: outwardly he was disinterested and inwardly he delved into the mysteries of life. . I am never alone without rejoicing that there is such a thing as death. Keats himself recognized that his philosophical musings were fed by myriad and preexisting streams of thought: “I have often pitied a tutor who has to. Keats made a number of remarkable and direct statements about death in his letters and his poetry, and those expressions further align him with the Stoics. The Stoics were not ascetics, like the mendicant and homeless Cynics, but Seneca preached against self indulgence in lifestyle. Although Keats’s advice might seem commonsensical to some, the notion of fixing ones thoughts on whatever of value remains centers Stoic thought. For all its allegiance to contemporary critical methods, Keats and Philosophy is a welcome reminder of the fullness of Keats' text and the value of reading his poetry with care. Moses Hadas in his introduction to The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca (1958) has explained, regarding the ubiquity of Stoic thought after the time of Marcus Aurelius: “After his time the school as such faded out, but its doctrines perceptibly influenced later Neoplatonism and some of the Church Fathers and became a substantial strand in the skein of European thought” (26). Keats and Seneca were in agreement on the kind of person who merited the title of a philosopher. (part III, lines 2-10) Indeed, it would be hard to construct a situation more ruled by the heart to the utter exclusion of reason than that of Lycius. Any excessive emotion threatened it. His aesthetics overlap his practical philosophy because Keats believed that poetry could alleviate suffering and that writing it consoled him: “Life must be undergone, and I certainly derive some consolation from the thought of writing one or two more poems before it ceases. 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